ECSTASY

by KV Rose

  This could end very badly.

  I should just tell Alex now. It wasn’t my fault anyway. I stopped it.

  I should tell him.

  But I’m not going to.

  I’m fucking stupid.

  I rub my thumb over my inner thigh, still naked as I sit on the couch. I think about the razor blades under the sink.

  I think about how easy it would be.

  No. I won’t do that. It’s been a few weeks since the last time. The one Eli hinted at. My body feels flushed when I think about him watching me then.

  So, I don’t.

  I push it from my mind. It’s a habit from when I was a teenager. It doesn’t really affect me now.

  Nope.

  I’m fine.

  While I wait for Alex’s reply, I thumb through my contacts, and my dealer’s name, Jax, scrolls past the screen. I scroll back up, debate a second, and then shoot off a quick text to Jax in the event Alex doesn’t actually want to see me.

  I can’t be alone.

  Not tonight.

  Jax takes no time to reply: Come over at 7. I’ve got some good shit.

  He always has good shit, but I just send a smiley face back and throw down my phone. Fuck Alex. I don’t want to get involved in that shit anyway. Not tonight. I need some space too, fucker.

  Now I’ve got to take a shower and get some damn clothes on before I head over to Jax’s to get all the way fucked up.

  10

  Zara

  A little breathless, my black strappy heels dangling from my fingers, I finally make it the three miles to Jax’s house a few minutes past seven. He lives in Shadow Lakes, which is a neighborhood known for its wild parties, edging Caven’s campus. This is where I first met Alex.

  I push him from my mind. I know he won’t be here. He was only at Jax’s party that night back in March because he was picking up some pot for a friend.

  I met Jax through a mutual friend that goes to ECU, and he’s saved my life since that stint in rehab, which incidentally was the same time Mom sold my car. My mother, and other responsible adults might disagree with that assessment, but I’m clearly not a responsible adult.

  I slide my shoes back on, run the back of my hand over my brow and take a deep breath.

  My heart is pumping at the thought of what Jax has in store for me tonight, and probably from the three-mile walk in the September heat, but I’m stoked I’m here before anyone else. I didn’t take anything save for that tequila and the Addie I did earlier. I don’t want any other drugs to fuck with what Jax has.

  I flick my braids over my shoulder and straighten my hot pink crop top.

  Now that I’m here, walking up his driveway, I realize it’s actually a little cool outside, a slight breeze making the little hairs on my arms stand on end, wicking against the sweat slick on my skin.

  The heels of my shoes click on the pavement as I head up to his white, ranch-style home situated at the end of the cul-de-sac. Perfect for parties.

  Jax has a well-tended flower garden which makes me laugh a little, but over the summer, I learned it’s one of his hobbies. Go fucking figure.

  I reach out to ring the doorbell but he’s already pulling open the door, a big smile on his face and a beer in his hand. I smell tobacco and weed as he opens the screen door for me and I step inside, hugging him back as he throws one arm around me.

  He shuts the door behind me, and I glance around his tidy living room; grey carpets and a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall across from black leather couches. I spin around and find him looking me up and down, nodding his approval.

  “Like the leather,” he says, pointing at my mini skirt. Yeah, that was a bitch to walk in. He seems to realize that’s exactly what I just did because he narrows his blue eyes and says, “Wait. Did you fucking walk here?”

  I nod once, throwing up my hands. “Yep. Sure did.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve picked you up.”

  I glance at the beer in his hand, see his red-rimmed eyes. But I don’t call him out on it. Driving a little drunk and a little high is probably nothing to Jax. I don’t point out that he should know I don’t have a car. I just shrug. “I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. I kind of like to walk. Back in high school, I’d go for runs at the park in Monkey Junction—where I grew up, and where Mom still lives, the next town over—all the time. Before my little problem started.

  “Well, you look good,” he tells me, nodding.

  I laugh, shaking my head. “Good. Let’s hope whoever I end up fucking tonight thinks so, too.”

  He scratches his neck, takes a pull from his beer as he saunters into the kitchen. “Oh, come on, Za,” he says, his voice lazy as always as he opens the fridge and peers inside. “Don’t be fucking around too much. Not good for your soul. Besides, Alex is probably still drooling over your ass.”

  He knows we broke up, because aside from Kylie, he’s the only real friend I have. And unlike Kylie, he doesn’t really give a damn I cheated on Alex.

  He thinks Alex is a dick anyway. Which he is.

  I don’t say any of that though. I don’t really want to talk about Alex, especially with whatever the hell it was that happened with Eli.

  Instead, I just laugh out loud, flop down on the black leather couch and cross my legs at the ankle as I slouch down, fingers drumming against my bare skin beneath my crop top.

  “Who you inviting?” I ask, changing the subject.

  Jax pulls a baggie out of the fridge and I perk up but make myself stay seated.

  His mention of Alex aside, I’m just relieved he hasn’t asked about the dead girl. Every time I close my eyes, I can see the eerie way her brown hair was just floating in tendrils around her head in the water.

  I don’t want to think about it. Talk about it. Or, remember it. I didn’t really know her, and what I did know, I didn’t like, but seeing a corpse is kind of unsettling.

  “You know. Just some people from around. None of those bullshit Caven athletes, don’t you worry. People I work with.” I almost laugh out loud at that. He’s a dealer, and that’s it. But looking around his house, it looks like that’s really all he needs to be. “Who knows who’ll end up showing up?” He sets his beer down on the counter in his kitchen, grabs a spoon from a drawer and comes into the living room, sitting right on the floor in front of his coffee table.

  He sets the spoon and the bag which is full of white powder on the table and grabs his phone from the back pocket of his jeans. He scrolls through it a second and then Problem$ by Somber floods some hidden speakers, the bass thudding.

  I like this beat.

  I sit up, start dancing with my hands up, eyes closed, a smirk on my face, and I hear him laugh.

  “Hey,” he says after a minute, and I pause my stupid dance moves, dropping my hands, and look at him as he scoops out half a teaspoon full of whatever is in that bag, “did you know that dead girl?” He sets down the spoon, pulls out his wallet, thumbs free a card.

  Damn, it seems I can’t get away from her.

  “Rihanna?” I shake my head. “Nah.” Technically true. “I was at the party though, when she was…you know.” I wrinkle my nose at the memory, wondering if Jax knows about the tit video. If he does, he’s probably too much of a gentleman to say anything about it. I walked by during the week to pick some shit up and he didn’t mention it then, so hopefully he won’t now.

  He’s cutting the powder into a thin line with his card, but he pauses at my words, looks up, his blue eyes on mine. “No shit?”

  I scoot to the edge of the couch, knees together, elbows propped up on them. “No shit,” I confirm. “I found her.”

  His eyes widen a fraction. He’s always pretty high, so I don’t think he can actually open his eyes any more than that. “You all right?” he asks, blinking, then turning back to his lines.

  I eye them, my mouth going dry and excitement making my heart flutter, but I keep myself contained. I don’t even know what it is yet. Not fine enough to be
coke, not really grainy enough for ketamine.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” I tell him honestly. I actually wish I felt a little more at her death, but I didn’t fucking like her and I didn’t really fucking know her.

  Jax doesn’t judge though. He just nods once and says, “Let it be a lesson, Za. Don’t get fucked up around pools.”

  I laugh, shaking my head. “Shut up.”

  The corners of his mouth pull up in a smile and when his lines are nice and straight, he picks his head up and looks toward me, putting the card back into his wallet. “You ready?”

  I rub my hands together, lower myself onto the floor and cross one leg over the other so I’m not all spread out in front of Jax. I’m pretty sure he’s not at all interested in me. He’s never made a move and I know he sees some chick that he’s always off and on again with. Either way, he seems to see me as strictly a friend and the feeling is mutual. It’s good to be friends with your dealer. They won’t sell you shit laced with fentanyl or jack up the prices for no damn reason.

  And they let you try shit for free, like right now.

  “What is it?” I ask, holding back, but my palms are sweaty. I’m ready to get fucked up before any of the people he invited come over.

  He scratches his neck again and smiles. “I’d rather not say yet.”

  I give him the look. What kind of bullshit is that? Even I’m not that stupid. Or willing, I don’t think.

  He laughs, swatting away my concern with a lazy flick of his hand. “Nah, nothing crazy. It’s kinda like K, kinda like coke. You get that kinda spacey feeling but like, a little hype too.”

  My eyes widen. “A dissociative and a stimulant? Count me the fuck in.” See Kylie, I could be a pharmacist too.

  He smiles, rolling his eyes. “Knew you’d be down.” Then he pulls his wallet out of his pocket, tightly rolls up a twenty and hands it to me. “You can take ‘em all.”

  He doesn’t need to tell me twice. The lines are gone in no time.

  And it tastes like shit, dripping down the back of my throat. I can’t help the snorting sound I make, coughing and rubbing the back of my hand over my nose

  “What the fuck?” I say, the taste like a mix of chemicals and tar. I swallow as Jax gets up, taking the rolled up twenty and spoon back into the kitchen. “Need to work on your taste testing,” I call out to him, massaging my throat. “Shit tastes terrible.”

  He laughs and comes back into the living room with an unopened sports drink. I twist off the cap, gulp the red liquid down until I can’t taste whatever the fuck I just snorted.

  I massage my throat again, then twist the cap on the bottle. I can’t feel shit yet, but I’m just glad that taste is out of the back of my throat. The drip is awful.

  Jax lights up a cigarette, sitting back down on the floor at the table, beside me. He pulls the ashtray in the center of the table closer to him. “That bad?” he asks after he exhales a cloud of smoke.

  I cough, making a show of it. “That bad,” I tell him truthfully. I drum my fingers on the table. “But I don’t taste it now. That drink works wonders.” I nod toward the half-empty bottle on the table between us. “How long ‘til I start feeling…” I trail off, because I can see the smoke from Jax’s cigarette in the air in front of me and it looks green.

  I blink, and it’s back to white and grey but I blink again and it’s green, almost shimmering. The music, the table, Jax himself, they’re all in the background of what I’m seeing.

  I lift my hand to touch the smoke and my hand feels heavy. I catch sight of it, and it seems like it’s not quite mine. But that’s my black polish and the freckle on the back of my hand. But it still looks like it belongs to someone else.

  I clamp my fingers around my wrist, holding my hand up, and it looks like my hands are just holding themselves. Detached from me.

  Jax laughs. “Yeah. Not long.”

  I drop my hands and turn to stare at him.

  He’s watching me with mild amusement. “You all right?”

  I nod, staring at his mouth. When he spoke, it wasn’t with that same lazy drawl. It was musical.

  “Say it again.” I clamp a hand over my mouth. My voice is music too.

  He laughs. “You all right?” He smiles, then asks, “You wanna put on the music?” His words seem to float in the air. “Might help you out.”

  I smile at him and nod slowly, then reach for my phone, tucked into my bra. My fingers seem like they belong to someone else, but strangely enough, they do what I will them to do.

  They move with my thoughts.

  My fingers move with my thoughts. Holy shit.

  Distracting me from music and the insanity of that revelation, I’ve got a text from Alex. Asking if he could come over. Then several more after that.

  Alex: Come on, Zara. Don’t be fucking shady.

  Alex: I’ve had a long day.

  Alex: I just want to talk.

  A grin spreads across my face, and I wonder what my smile looks like. For a moment, I wish I could just pluck it off my head, hold it up like a Mr. Potato Head smile and look at it.

  I ask Jax what his address is because I highly doubt Alex remembers this house, and the numbers and words he shoots back are full of soft, lilting music.

  Lilting.

  That reminds me of Eli.

  But this isn’t Eli.

  This is Alex Cardi.

  I say his name out loud and Jax snorts. “Your ex, the great, beloved, champion quarterback asshole?” He laughs again. “Damn, Za. Get off his dick.”

  I don’t let his words jar me. My fingers are already flying across the keyboard on my phone of their own accord with Jax’s address and then: Come find me.

  I open my music app, put on IKnowI’mNotAHero by The Virus and Antidote, then put my phone down on the table and meet Jax’s eyes.

  He frowns at me. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. I heard he got into some trouble last year at some house party,” Jax says. He shrugs. “Almost got caught up in a rape scandal.”

  I know this should be disturbing news to me, but I can’t really feel it. “Rape?” I mouth the word and it explodes with music, coming out like a musical refrain with an echo. Kind of disturbing, such a nasty word sounding so magical.

  Jax raises a brow. “Yeah. I don’t know the details. Just some gossip or shit. You good with sleeping with him or should I make sure he stays off you since you two broke up?”

  I see he’s shuffling a deck of cards on the table. I have no idea where they came from. Maybe out of thin fucking air. The cigarette is in the ash tray. I don’t remember watching him put it out.

  I think about his question, and I can’t stop the slow grin spreading on my face as I think about Alex and Eli both almost fucking me.

  “I’m good,” I answer him. It comes out like “goooOooooOoood” and I giggle, my hand over my mouth.

  I think I need to ask him about this rape, but I don’t really want to. It kind of just floats away into the back of my mind. Instead, I lift my hands in front of my face, twisting and twirling my fingers. Jax keeps shuffling the cards and then I notice my phone light up like a Christmas tree.

  A Christmas tree.

  Mom always put a white one up every year, dragged her husband (whichever number) to a little decoration party with me as the sullen stepdaughter. Her husbands have all been pretty decent to me—save for my own father, who I have very few memories of and get a birthday card once a year from and nothing more—but one of them really hated Christmas. He refused to decorate, and Mom called him Scrooge as he pouted in a corner while we hung the ornaments.

  I laugh out loud at that random memory as I read the text from Alex.

  Be there soon, princess.

  My heart flutters with those words.

  “He’s so tall,” I say out loud.

  Jax starts dealing the cards between us, even though I have no idea what he’s trying to play.

  “Yeah, fucker is huge,” he says.

  I giggle again.
r />   11

  Alex

  By the time I make it to the house, there are half a dozen cars in the driveway and more parked on the curb.

  I back the Jeep into the next available space on the side of the street and when I get out, I can hear the bass from inside the house, but I can’t quite tell what’s playing.

  I glance at my phone after I lock the Jeep. I’ve only been here once before. The night I met Zara at some party here. I was just trying to buy weed from the dude who lives here. I know him, but not well.

  All I do know is that he better not have his hands on my girl when I walk into that house.

  I rub my palms on my pants, walking up to the front door. I can’t stand to be in this subdivision longer than necessary. I want to get in and get out. This is where all the shit went down last fall, when my life almost went to shit because me and Eli made a stupid decision.

  But I don’t particularly want to think about it, so I put it out of my mind.

  I have several texts from Zara.

  Her: Hurry up, handsome.

  Her: I can see the music!!

  Her: Where r u?

  Clearly, she’s drunk off her ass. It’s amazing, how I want to kill her and save her all at the same time. I’m not sure which I’ll end up doing tonight.

  Sighing, I shove the phone in my back pocket and knock on the door.

  It swings open almost immediately, and a woman that isn’t Zara grins at me, a plastic cup in her hand. I don’t know who she is, and she looks older than a typical college student. She’s got curly brown hair and a heavily lipsticked smile.

  “Welcome, partner,” she says, clearly drunk, and steps back to let me inside.

  I nod, not returning her smile.

  Still Be Friends by G-Eazy is playing. There are tons of people in this little house, packed in tight, and the smell of tobacco and marijuana assaults my senses.

  Someone tries to put a drink into my hand, but I don’t take it, pushing past them.

  It doesn’t take me long to find Zara.

  She’s on top of the coffee table, twirling round and round, her arms spread wide. She’s wearing a black mini skirt and a hot pink, short top that shows off her pale, taut stomach, heels accentuating her slim legs. Her head is tilted back, her long, white-blonde braids down her back.